Echoes of the Great Song by David Gemmell Read Free Book Online Page A

had moored in the bay. Karesh Var and one hundred men had arrived as it raised its anchor and set sail towards the north. All the nomads found on the ice were holes, as if made by tent pegs. Nothing else. He and his men had dug around for a while. But there was nothing to find. It was perplexing.
    As he neared the coast he slowed his pony, raising an arm for the twenty riders to follow his lead. Karesh Var's keen dark eyes scanned the ice. Only one Blue-hair could he see, a small figure with a forked blue beard.
    The others were ordinary men. Karesh Var was nervous. Legends told of the great weapons of the Blue-hair, bows that sent bolts of light into the enemy, opening great blackened holes in the chests of warriors, bursting asunder breastplates of bronze. They spoke of black swords that shimmered with lightning, swords that could cut through metal as a wire slides through cheese. Karesh Var had no wish to tackle a foe armed in such a manner.
    And yet, and here was the quandary, his young men were fighters. Indeed they loved to fight. They were, he had decided long since, men with little imagination.
    'We would ride into Hell for you, Karesh,' young Jiang had told him once. He had smiled and patted the boy's shoulder. The young were made for such futile gestures, for they believed in immortality. They were convinced - just as he was once convinced - that the power that flowed through their veins would flow for ever. They gloried in their strength, and even mocked older men who could no longer ride as hard, or hunt as well as they. As if those men had chosen to grow old, or in some way had allowed age and infirmity to overtake them.
    The young riders who followed Karesh Var wanted to attack the Blue-hairs, to destroy them and thus earn glory back in the village. Karesh Var would also like to destroy them, for had they not brought the world to calamity? Were they not the bringers of ice and fire? Even so he had no wish to lead his men into a battle that would end with the slaughter of his riders.
    With these sombre thoughts in mind he saw two men walking towards the riders. Neither were Blue-hairs.
    Karesh Var drew rein and waited for them. One was tall, his long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. He wore no armour, but a short sword was belted at his side and he carried in his left hand an ornate golden bow. Karesh Var narrowed his eyes. The man was carrying no quiver of arrows. He transferred his gaze to the second warrior.
    This one was shorter and stockier and held a small single-bladed axe in his right hand.
    Beyond the walking men the single Blue-hair was still out on the ice. He was holding a small box from which dangled bright, shining wires. It seemed to Karesh Var that lanterns had been set upon the glacier, and they were shining brightly, and he could hear a distant hum, like a swarm of bees.
    The taller of the two men had halted some twenty paces from the riders. The second man sat down upon a rock, and began to sharpen his axe with a whetstone.
    The tall man drew his sword and lowered the point to touch the frosted dirt of the plain. Then, walking across the path of the riders, he steadily cut a narrow line in the earth. This done he sheathed his sword and took up the ornate bow of gold.
    Karesh Var was an appreciative man. He had never envied his fellow hunters, even in the days when, as a young man, he could not match their skills. Instead he had watched them, learned from them. Now he appreciated the talents of the man before him. Faced with twenty fighters he had made no overt threat, and yet, with one simple action, had stated his intentions. He had drawn a line, created a border. The message was clear.
    Anyone who crossed it would face grim retribution. Karesh Var was a proud man, but not overly arrogant. He had nothing to prove to anyone. Some of his more reckless companions would have charged at the man, and he could sense the growing anger in the riders around him. Karesh Var sat his pony in silence,